Public access point

ABSTRACT

The invention instantiates a Personal VLAN bridge, using IEEE Std. 802.11 elements. The result is a bridge, referred to as a public access point, that is better suited for implementing public wireless data networks than the IEEE Std. 802.11 architecture. The invention also provides a location-update protocol for updating the forwarding tables of bridges that connect public access points together. The invention further provides a method for more controlled bridging, which is referred to as fine bridging.

This application is a Continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/226,586, filed Sep. 7, 2011, which is a Continuation of U.S. Pat. No.8,675,559, filed Jul. 26, 2011, which is a Continuation of U.S. Pat. No.7,986,937, filed Jan. 9, 2004, which is a Continuation-in-Part of U.S.Pat. No. 7,188,364, filed Jan. 25, 2002, which claims the benefit ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 60/343,307, filed Dec. 20, 2001, whichare incorporated herein in their entirety by this reference thereto.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Technical Field

The invention relates to wireless public access to electronic networks.More particularly, the invention relates to an architecture that permitsthe creation of virtual 15 basic service sets from within a physicalaccess point for an electronic network.

Description of the Prior Art

Public WiFi hotspots are deployed using traditional IEEE Std.802.11-compliant access points with some exceptions. However, the IEEEStd. 802.11 architecture and security model are unsuitable for publicuse. Stations associated with an access point (AP) share an 802.11 BasicService Set (BSS), or wireless LAN. Unless all members of a BSS aretrustworthy, no station in the BSS is safe from attacks initiated byother members. Such attacks include stealing the basic service and anyconfidential information provided by subscribers to get the service,such as passwords and credit card information. Other attacks includedisruptions in network integrity and quality of service. It isunrealistic to expect all members of a public BSS, i.e. one that iscomprised of stations associated with a public AP, to be trustworthy.Therefore, stations are vulnerable in a public BSS.

Sharing a public BSS presents another threat. Members of the BSS cancontaminate other member stations with worms or Trojan horses. Theport-based DCOM RPC attack, MSBlaster, and Welchia worms are goodexamples. The threat is more acute with a public BSS which is anelectronic cesspool. How can a station cope with the threats?

Stations in the BSS might fend for themselves with defenses such aspersonal firewalls. Alternatively, a public WiFi provider might deploy asecurity model that protects subscribers from one another. One approachis to prevent inter-station communication. This is an untenable solutionthough. Stations that trust each other should be allowed to communicateamong themselves, even in a public setting. Stations, for instance,should be able to access a file server on the same local LAN in ameeting held at a convention center. This is the usual practice atstandards meetings, for example. Yet if this type of sharing ispermitted, then under IEEE Std. 802.11, it becomes easy for an intruderto render the entire BSS inoperable. This was demonstrated at the 2001Usenix Security Conference and at the 2001 DEFCON conference in LasVegas. No security model today for wireless LAN can support this type ofsharing without introducing vulnerabilities.

It would be advantageous to provide a security model for wireless LANthat can support sharing of a single physical BSS without introducingvulnerabilities or compromising security among stations using the BSS.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention provides a security model for wireless LANs that cansupport sharing of a single physical BSS by stations without introducingvulnerabilities or compromising station security. Thus, a new kind ofaccess point is provided, which is referred to herein as a Public AccessPoint (PAP). The PAP has a different security architecture than thatprescribed by IEEE Std. 802.11. The PAP architecture permits thecreation of virtual Basic Service Sets from within a single physical AP.An arbitrary number of virtual service sets can be created, and anynumber of end stations can belong to a virtual BSS. A PAP appears to endstations as multiple physical 802.11 access points, one for each virtualBSS. Therefore, a PAP is fully interoperable with any 802.11 endstation.

As an example of a PAP's use, consider a convention center. Differentmeetings may use 802.11-enabled projectors. The PAP allows provisioningof separate LAN segments for each meeting, providing separate linkprivacy and integrity for each. Using only IEEE Std. 802.11 instead, ameeting projector and all stations capable of projecting with it mustuse a private access point or an ad hoc WLAN, and manage WLANmembership, authentication and keying material. Otherwise, anyone couldproject with the projector, or worse, intercept valid projector trafficbefore it is displayed so that it can be monitored or corrupted by anoutsider.

Besides the security management burden associated with prior artapproaches being too high, meeting planners prefer to leverage localaccess points rather than installing and configuring their own at everyvenue. The PAP can administer all security. With it, all end stations ineach meeting, which includes the shared projector and any local fileservers, are effectively associated with a virtual 802.11 access pointfor that meeting, and all virtual access points arise from the samephysical PAP.

The invention also provides a location-update protocol for updating theforwarding 10 tables of bridges that connect public access pointstogether.

The invention further provides a method for more controlled bridging,which is referred to as fine bridging.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block schematic diagram of an IEEE Std. 802.11 protocolentity;

FIG. 2 is a block schematic diagram of an IEEE Std. 802.11 configurationinfrastructure;

FIG. 3 is a block schematic diagram of a public access pointarchitecture according to the invention;

FIG. 4 is a block schematic diagram of a policy for accessibility withina three-station virtual BSS, one of which is an AP, according to theinvention;

FIG. 5 is a block schematic diagram of a policy among four stationswhere stations A and B share server stations S and D but A and B are notallowed to access each other according to the invention;

FIG. 6 is a block schematic diagram of the policy in FIG. 3, modified sothat an edge from B to A is added to the policy according to theinvention; and

FIG. 7 is a block schematic diagram of an IEEE Std. 802.10 bridge thateliminates direct communication between edge hosts connected to theinfrastructure system via port-based VLAN assignment, egress filtering,and shared VLAN learning (SVL).

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Public Access Point

In U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/057,566, a protocol is describedwhereby an end station can create a virtual bridged LAN (VLAN) thatclones an existing VLAN by duplicating the existing VLAN's tagged anduntagged member sets. Further, the new VLAN is unique by virtue of itsunique security association. The association provides cryptographickeying material that keeps packets belonging to the VLAN private andpermits their VLAN membership to be verified cryptographically by akeyed MAC. The new VLAN is owned by its creator. The owner controlswhich stations can join and discover the VLAN, as well as the VLAN'slifetime. Therefore, the VLAN is called a personal virtual bridged LAN(PVLAN).

One embodiment of the invention provides a refinement of the PVLAN thatuses only standard elements of IEEE Std. 802.11-1999 (see Part 11:Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY)specifications, ISO/IEC 8802-11:1999(E), ANSI/IEEE Std. 802.11, 1999edition; and Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) andPhysical Layer (PHY) specifications, Medium Access Control (MAC)Security Enhancements, IEEE Std. 802.11i/D7.0, Draft amendment toISO/IEC 8802-11:1999(E), ANSI/IEEE Std. 802.11, 1999 edition).

See also, FIG. 1, which is a block schematic diagram of an IEEE Std.802.11 protocol entity; and FIG. 2, which is a block schematic diagramof an IEEE Std. 802.11 configuration infrastructure, in which each BSS(BSS-A, BSS-B) comprises respective access point (AP-A, AP-B) andassociated stations (A1/A2, B1/B2). No modification of the behavior ofany 802.11-compliant end station that does not act as an access point isrequired by the invention. The refinement instantiates a PVLAN to avirtual 802.11 BSS and affects only the access point.

FIG. 3 is a block schematic diagram of a public access pointarchitecture according to the invention. A virtual 802.11 BSS, e.g.BSS-1 or BSS-2, comprises a set of stations, each with a hardware (MAC)address (see FIG. 1), that share a unique security association, calledthe group security association. A security association consists of anencryption key and an authentication code key.

Exactly one of the stations in a virtual BSS is a public access point(PAP) 31. It bridges the 802.11 Wireless Medium (WM) 32 and the 802.11Distribution System Medium (DSM) 33.

A unique unicast security association exists for every station in avirtual BSS. It is shared between the station and the PAP of thatvirtual BSS. Each virtual BSS, e.g. BSS-1 or BSS-2 has its ownidentifier, or BSSID. It is a virtual MAC address of the PAP belongingto that BSS. The PAP receives any frame from the WM destined for one ofits virtual MAC addresses, and transmits a frame to the WM using one ofits virtual MAC addresses as the source MAC address of the frame.

A collection of virtual basic service sets is supported by a shared TSF(Timing Synchronization Function), DCF (Distributed CoordinationFunction), and optionally a PCF (Point Coordination Function), at asingle PAP. There is a single NAV (Network Allocation Vector) and PC(Point Coordinator) at each PAP. Such sharing is possible because the802.11 virtual carrier-sense, medium reservation mechanism is designedto work with multiple basic service sets that use the same channeloverlap. This sort of overlap may occur among virtual basic service setssupported by a single-channel PAP. The virtual service sets may use onechannel and therefore may overlap at a PAP.

A PAP can belong to more than one virtual BSS. See BSS-1, BSS-2 onFIG. 1. Any station that is not a PAP can belong to at most one virtualBSS.

A virtual 802.11 BSS can be bridged with another virtual BSS through theconnection of their public access points by a virtual bridged LAN. ThePAP of each virtual BSS connects to the Distribution System (DS) via atrunked or untagged port of a VLAN-aware bridge. Frames transmitted tothe DS may carry VLAN tags known to the DSM. A PAP may maintain a DSMVLAN mapping that maps a VLAN tag to a virtual BSSID.

There are presently two kinds of virtual BSS: Class-1 and Class-3virtual BSS. A PAP supports exactly one Class-1 virtual BSS and one ormore multiple Class-3 virtual basic service sets. The Class-1 virtualBSS is the only virtual BSS a station is allowed to occupy while it isin 802.11 State 1 or 2, as governed by the PAP. When in State 3, astation is allowed to join a Class-3 virtual BSS. The Class-3 virtualBSS may be determined by the kind of authentication, e.g. Open System orShared Key, used to authenticate the station.

The Class-1 virtual BSSID is the BSSID field of every Class 1 and Class2 frame that has such a field. It is also the receiver or transmitteraddress field, where appropriate, for Class 1 and Class 2 frames.

Every virtual BSS has identical beacon frame content except for theTimestamp, Beacon interval, Capability information Privacy (Protected)bit, Service Set Identifier (SSID), security capability element, andTraffic Indication Map (TIM) element fields.

A PAP does not have to beacon for a Class-3 virtual BSS if it does notsupport PS (Power-Save) mode for end stations in that BSS. If it doesbeacon for a Class-3 BSS, then the SSID element in every beaconspecifies the broadcast SSID. These steps prevent any Class-3 virtualBSS from being identified through beaconing.

Only a Class-1 virtual BSS beacon has an SSID element with anon-broadcast SSID field. A station can associate with the Class-1virtual BSS only. The station uses the non-broadcast SSID in the SSIDelement of an Association or Reassociation Request frame.

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/057,566 identifies PVLAN join anddiscovery steps. With a PVLAN represented as a virtual BSS, these stepsare instantiated as follows:

Join

Every station is by default a member of the Class-1 virtual BSS at aPAP. The PAP can either authenticate the user of the station or thestation itself in the Class-1 virtual BSS. If successful, the stationenters 802.11 State 2 at that PAP. At this time, the PAP and station mayexchange Class 1 and Class 2 frames while in the Class-1 virtual BSS.

Class 1 frames are not protected cryptographically. Class 2 frames maybe protected cryptographically if the station and PAP share a unicastsecurity association after successful authentication. The PAP andstation may also share a group security association afterauthentication. The group security association is for that Class-3virtual BSS to which the station belongs if it completes an 802.11Association with the PAP.

Before the station and PAP can exchange Class 3 frames, the station must

-   -   1) request Association with the Class-1 virtual BSS from State        2; and    -   2) switch to a Class-3 virtual BSS.

The PAP switches the station to a Class-3 virtual BSS by responding tothe station's Association Request with an Association Response MMPDUwhose source address (Address 2 Field) or BSSID (Address 3 Field) is theClass-3 virtual BSSID for that virtual BSS. The Association Response'sCapability information field may have its Privacy (Protected) bit set toone.

The Class-3 virtual BSS is determined in one of three ways:

-   -   1) an authentication server in the DS specifies a DSM VLAN for        the user and the PAP maps it to a Class-3 virtual BSSID using        its DSM VLAN mapping;    -   2) an authentication server in the DS specifies a Class-3        virtual BSS for the user; or    -   3) the PAP creates a new Class-3 virtual BSS for the user; the        PAP may inform an authentication server of the new virtual BSS        and provide it with rules for allowing other stations to join        the new BSS.

Discovery

The Class-1 virtual BSS is discovered through 802.11 beacon or ProbeResponse management frames where the BSSID field (Address 3 field) andsource address field (Address 2 field) are each set to the Class-1virtual BSSID. The Privacy (Protected) bit of the Capability informationfield in these frames is set to zero. The TIM element of the beaconapplies to the Class-1 virtual BSS. Only the Class-1 virtual BSS isadvertised through beacon frames.

Data Frame (MPDU) Distribution

A PAP implements the MAC Protocol Data Unit (MPDU) bridge protocol. Foran MPDU received from either the DSM or the WM, the protocol is definedby the following two cases:

-   -   1. MPDU received from the DSM. There are two subcases (Note: The        two subcases handle delivery of the received MPDU to the local        LLC of the PAP because the station of every PAP belongs to at        least one virtual BSS):        -   a. The received MPDU has no VLAN tag or a null VLAN tag. The            MPDU from the DSM is relayed to a virtual BSS if the            destination address is the address of a station that belongs            to the virtual BSS and the station is associated with the            PAP, or if the destination address is a group address, the            virtual BSS has a station that belongs to the group and 20            the station is associated with the PAP. All stations belong            to the broadcast group.        -   b. The received MPDU has a non-null VLAN tag. The virtual            BSS to which the MPDU is relayed is identified by the            virtual BSSID to which 25 the non-null VLAN tag is mapped            under the PAP's DSM VLAN mapping. If the mapping is            undefined for the given tag, the MPDU is not relayed.        -   Any virtual BSS to which a received MPDU is relayed has a            BSSID which forms the source address (Address 2 field) of            the 802.11 MPDU that is relayed to that virtual BSS.    -   2. MPDU received from the WM. The received 802.11 MPDU is        relayed to the virtual BSS identified by the Address 1 field of        the MPDU if the destination address (Address 3 field of MPDU) is        the address of a station that belongs to the identified virtual        BSS and the station is associated with the PAP, or if the        destination address is a group address. Otherwise, the frame is        not relayed to any virtual BSS. The Address 1 field of the        received 802.11 MPDU is the source address (Address 2 field) of        the 802.11 MPDU that is relayed to the virtual BSS identified by        the Address 1 field.    -   The received MPDU is also relayed to the DSM if the destination        address (Address 3 field of MPDU) is the address of a station        that is not associated with the PAP, or if the destination        address is a group address. The MPDU relayed to the DSM has a        VLAN tag if the DS is VLAN aware, and is untagged otherwise. The        VLAN tag is the pre-image of the Address 1 field of the received        MPDU under the PAP's DSM VLAN mapping.

Encryption and Decryption Process

Encryption and decryption applies 802.11 Data frames and Managementframes of subtype Association Request/Response, ReassociationRequest/Response, Disassociation and Deauthentication.

The encryption process used by a PAP before sending an 802.11 Data orManagement frame to the WM involves two major steps:

-   -   identifying a security association for the frame; and    -   then using the association to construct an expanded frame for        transmission according to some encipherment and authentication        code protocols.

Different encipherment and authentication code protocols can be used forbroadcast and multicast traffic among virtual basic service sets, anddifferent encipherment and authentication code protocols can be used fordirected (unicast) traffic among stations in a single virtual BSS.

If the frame destination address (Address 1 field) is the address of astation then the unicast security association shared between thatstation and the PAP is used in the expansion. If the frame is a Dataframe and its destination address is a group address then the MPDUbridge protocol identifies a destination virtual BSS for the frame. Thegroup security association for the identified virtual BSS is used in theexpansion.

A non-PAP station transmits an 802.11 MPDU of type Data or Management tothe DS using the unicast security association it shares with the PAP inits virtual BSS. When receiving an 802.11 Data or Management frame fromthe WM, the PAP attempts to decipher and verify the integrity of theframe using the unicast security association for the station identifiedby the source address (Address 2 field) of the MPDU.

When receiving an 802.11 MPDU of type Data or Management from a PAP, anon-PAP station attempts to decipher and verify the integrity of theframe using the unicast security association it shares with the PAP ifthe destination address of the frame (Address 1 field) is the address ofthe station, and using the group security association of its Class-3virtual BSS if the destination address of the frame is a group address.

Location-Update Protocol

The invention also comprises a location-update protocol for updating theforwarding tables of bridges, or other interconnection media, connectingPublic Access Points together.

Given multiple Public Access Points attached to different bridges in aspanning tree of a bridged LAN and an end station that associates withone of them and then reassociates with a new PAP, the new PAP sends adirected Bridge Protocol Data Unit (BPDU) (called a relocation PDU) tothe PAP with which the station was previously associated. Thedestination address of the BPDU is the Current AP address of theReassociation Request frame, which is a Class-3 virtual BSSID. Thesource address is the hardware address of the station.

Upon receiving a relocation MPDU at a particular port, a bridge updatesits forwarding table with an entry that binds the receiving port to thesource address of the MPDU.

A receiving bridge forwards a relocation MPDU to its designated rootport unless the MPDU arrived on that port or the receiving bridge is theroot of the spanning tree. If it is received at the designated root portof a bridge or by the root bridge then it is forwarded according to thelearned forwarding table of the bridge, which may involve flooding theMPDU to all ports except the receiving port.

Fine Bridging

One embodiment of the invention discussed above refines a PVLAN to avirtual BSS. Under the MPDU bridge protocol, any station in a virtualBSS can send a directed or group-addressed frame to any other station inthat virtual BSS. This may be undesirable. A meeting in a conferencecenter, for instance, may have its own virtual BSS but not all attendeestrust each other. By sharing the same virtual BSS, some attendees canlaunch worms or viruses. Trying to thwart these attacks by assigningeach attendee to a unique virtual BSS prevents attendees from being ableto share a server. Ideally, the server is shared by all meetingparticipants, yet no participant should be able to access, i.e. sendframes to, another participant. The Public Access Point described abovecannot provide this level of access control. An AP supporting finebridging can provide it.

See also, FIG. 7, which is a block schematic diagram of an IEEE Std.802.10 bridge that connects a set of edge hosts to an infrastructuresystem such as a LAN. Untagged frames arriving from edge hosts areassigned to VLAN A by virtue of port-based VLAN assignment (PVID A) anduntagged frames arriving from the infrastructure system are assigned toVLAN B (PVID B). The egress rules depicted allow for frames belonging toA or B to egress to the infrastructure while only those belonging to Bare allowed to egress to the edge hosts. In this way, edge hosts areprevented from communicating directly with one another.

Fine bridging decouples identification of a broadcast or multicastdomain with a BSS.

Under fine bridging, the bridging behavior of an AP is determined by apolicy expressed as a directed graph. The nodes of the graph arestations and there is an edge from a station A to a station B if andonly if station A must be able to access station B, in other words,station B must be able to receive directed or group frames from stationA.

For a given policy, the broadcast domain for a node is itself and allnodes it must access. The broadcast domain set of the policy is the setof broadcast domains for its nodes.

In an implementation of a policy, there is a group security associationper broadcast domain. Further, each station (node) possesses the groupsecurity association of the broadcast domain for itself in the policy,and of every other broadcast domain in the policy of which it is amember.

The former association may be used by the station for sending groupframes and the latter associations for receiving group frames.

The accessibility within a three-station virtual BSS, one of which is anAP, is captured by the policy shown in FIG. 4. Each node in the policyhas {A, B, AP} as its broadcast domain. Thus, there is only onebroadcast domain for the policy which is what one would expect giventhat the policy reflects a virtual BSS. Each station knows the groupsecurity association for the domain, and can send and receive groupframes under that association.

FIG. 5 captures a policy among four stations where stations A and Bshare server stations S and D but A and B are not allowed to access eachother.

The policy has broadcast domains B1: {A, S, D}, B2: {B, S, D} and B3:{D, A, S, B}. 15 Station A knows the group security association for B1,to send group frames, and the group security association for B3 toreceive group frames sent by S and D. Station D knows the group securityassociation for B3, to send group frames and to receive them from S, andthe group security associations for both B1 and B2 to receive groupframes from A and B respectively.

If the policy in FIG. 5 were modified so that an edge from, say B, to Awere added to the policy, as illustrated in FIG. 6, then domain B2 wouldbe eliminated and only B1 and B3 would remain.

If an edge from A to B were added to the policy in FIG. 6 then domainsB1, B2 and B3 would collapse into the single domain B3 for the policy.

The provision of other policy variations are within the ability of thoseskilled in the art.

Although the invention is described herein with reference to thepreferred embodiment, one skilled in the art will readily appreciatethat other applications may be substituted for those set forth hereinwithout departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.Accordingly, the invention should only be limited by the Claims includedbelow.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A Public Access Point (PAP) for use with aplurality of 802.11 end stations, the PAP comprising a single physicalaccess point (AP) that includes one or more processors and one or morememories storing computer-usable instructions configured to: instantiatea first personal virtual bridged LAN (PVLAN) into a first virtual 802.11Basic Service Set (BSS) from within the single physical access point(AP), instantiate a second PVLAN into a second virtual 802.11 BSS fromwithin the single physical AP, and provide a unique security associationcomprising an encryption key and an authentication code key for a firstportion of the end stations associated with the first virtual BSS, and aunique security association for a second portion of the end stationsassociated with the second virtual BSS.
 2. The apparatus of claim 1,wherein the PAP bridges an 802.11 Wireless Medium (WM) and an 802.11Distribution System Medium (DSM), or bridges said station within saidfirst virtual BSS.
 3. A Public Access Point (PAP) component for use witha plurality of 802.11 end stations, the PAP comprising a single physicalaccess point that includes one or more processors and one or morememories storing computer-usable instructions configured to: receive anassociation request from any one of said 802.11 end stations; and inresponse to receiving said association request, creating a personalvirtual bridged LAN (PVLAN) instantiated into a virtual 802.11 BasicService Set (BSS), wherein said personal virtual bridged LAN (PVLAN) isinstantiated from within the single physical access point (AP), andwherein the 802.11 end station shares a unique security associationcomprising an encryption key and an authentication code key with other802.11 end stations associated with the virtual 802.11 BSS.
 4. Theapparatus of claim 3, wherein the PAP bridges an 802.11 Wireless Medium(WM) and an 802.11 Distribution System Medium (DSM), or bridges saidstation within said virtual BSS.